Silent Hill F denied classification in Australia

Konami's upcoming Silent Hill F is denied classification in Australia, meaning the game will not be available for sale in Australia at this time. However, Silent Hill F's RC ratings are assigned by an automatic rating tool rather than through actual Australian Classification Committee members, so based on precedent, this is unlikely to be the end of the story.

Konami has not distributed its own games locally in Australia, but IGN has contacted its third-party distribution partners for comment.

There is no specific reason for the Silent Hill F rating yet. Since the introduction of the adult-only game category (R18+) in Australia in January 2013, games that were denied classification usually only carry out sexual activity markup with one man, who appear in children under 18 years of age, visual violence, visual descriptions of sexual violence, kidnapping incentives, and placing incentives with drug use. The 2008 “Silent Mountain: Homecoming” was initially denied release in Australia, due to high-impact torture scenes, but this was a few years before the introduction of the R18+ rating and can now adapt to the high-impact level of violence. Silent Hill: Homecoming was later released in Australia, with a camera angle that changed the problem scene, rated MA15+.

But what we already know is that the RC rating of Australia's Silent Hill F is actually assigned by an online tool maintained by the International Age Rating Alliance – a classification system designed for mobile and digital delivery games. The IARC classification tool is an online questionnaire where applicants simply answer a series of questions about the game content. The IARC tool will then assign automatic ratings from each field based on the classification criteria for each participating country. In the case of Australia, the IARC tool then sends the decision to automatically publish the decision Australia's national classification database.

In Australia, the tool can only be used for digitally distributed games (that is Passed in 2014 Because of the fact that, while the Australian Classification Commission averaged an average of 755 games per year, more than 40,000 games were released on the iOS App Store at that time). have Many examples of automated IARC ratings showing trends higher than human ratings From the classification committee. For example, the Kingdom is here in 2019: Save, we are glad that few reportedly were suddenly banned in Australia when there was no.

IARC tools are available for free, which is especially beneficial to small publishers and developers. Importantly, all physical releases must still be rated by the Classification Committee itself, so if Silent Hill F plans to perform physical releases in Australia, submissions to the Classification Committee will always have to be mandatory anyway. If the classification board itself can cover any classification that the IARC tool does not agree with.

In Australia, game publishers can have staff with approved classifiers or authorized assessors. Accredited classifier is an internal staff member who completes training from the Classification Committee and can classify the game themselves and their decision will be effective as a formal Classification Committee decision. Authorized assessors are employees or contractors with similar training, but their classification decisions are limited to recommendations to the Australian Classification Commission and then they must decide whether to apply.

For now, it is still too early to say whether Silent Hill F's RC rating in Australia will be maintained after further action. But, this is the first silent hill game 18+ rating certification in Japan.

Luke is a senior editor of the IGN Review Team. You can follow him on Bluesky @mrlukereilly and ask him about things.